The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has fixed Saturday, November 7, 2015, as the date the party will go to the polls to elect or endorse its Flagbearer and Parliamentary candidates for next year’s General Elections.
Per the modalities for the party’s upcoming parliamentary and presidential primaries, nominations will open on the 27th August and close on 10th September, according to PeaceFM‘s Yaw Obeng Manu and UTV‘s Prince Ahenkah who are monitoring events at the high-powered National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, which was attended by both President John Dramani Mahama and his Vice, Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur.
The ruling party has also decided that, all registered members will have the opportunity to exercise their franchise, thereby scrapping the Electoral College that earlier existed.
Addressing a news conference in Accra, moments after the NEC meeting, General Secretary for the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, revealed that filing fees for male Parliamentary aspirants has been pegged at GHC 10,000, whiles women and the physically challenged are expected to pay GHC 5,000.
“…the Presidential Filing Fee is GHC 50,000…6000 branches of the party will be opened for the election during the Primaries,” he added.
President Mahama, who stormed out of the meeting before it ended, recently (on Wednesday) declared that he is not afraid of competition and welcomed anyone willing to contest him for the presidential ticket of the ruling party.
“The NDC is a very democratic party so we allow for competition at all levels of the party and therefore the party encourages that. This is why we are called the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
“I believe in non-interference in the Parliamentary primaries because at that level such personal involvement could result in the choosing of candidates who will lose the general elections. Therefore it is always proper to allow for the people to elect their own candidates,” he told Uniiq FM in an interview.
More soon….
-pfm